Goldman’s Options Error Shows Peril Persists After Knight
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For all the efforts to shore up electronic markets in the aftermath of one of America’s biggest trading catastrophes, yesterday’s options malfunction by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. shows the dangers haven’t gone away.
A programming error caused the firm to send unintentional stock options orders in the first minutes of trading, pushing prices on dozens of contracts to a dollar each, according to a person briefed on the matter yesterday and data compiled by Bloomberg. Any losses for Goldman Sachs, the fifth-largest U.S. bank by assets, won’t be known until exchanges determine which contracts should be canceled, said the person, who requested anonymity because the information is private.